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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Political Discussion Thread

I can't take credit for this quote - it was from an article I was reading about tRump's GoT poster ...

... considering that the president spent a lot of time during his meeting talking about how effective walls are—something Game of Thrones spectacularly debunked more than a year ago.

To be fair, unless the Mexicans have an ice breathing undead Dragon, the wall will probably work fine :lmao::lmao:
 
Last I saw Trump still has about a 90% approval rating among republicans and conservatives. He most definitely has a good chance in 2020 with that kind of support.

And the polls had Hillary beating Trump...

I think that the only way that Trump wins a second term is if the Democrats run a far left career politician as a candidate. However, I think that if Crazy Uncle Bernie ran, he would destroy Trump's chances to win again because his "out there" character is not that of your typical candidate. But I don't think the DNC would allow him to win the nomination because he has his own ideas.

Personally, I know a bunch of people who voted for Trump who did so only because they could not stand Hillary and mentioned that if it was any candidate other than her, they would not have voted for Trump.

This is the exact reason that we need a 3rd party.
 
Last I saw Trump still has about a 90% approval rating among republicans and conservatives. He most definitely has a good chance in 2020 with that kind of support.

I too saw a recent poll that showed Trump's support among self described republicans at 88%. That's high support within the party and because of it one certainly shouldn't make the mistake of counting Trump out. At the same time polls also show his support among independents has dropped significantly during the last two years. We saw this in the 2018 elections where rural areas ended up going even redder but independents in suburban districts across the country went blue in a big way. This is not good news for either Trump or the GOP.

I'm optimistic about 2020. A lot of folks voted for Trump in 2016 before he was a known political quantity because they were turned off by Hillary - who was a very well-known political quantity whom the public had seen publicly pilloried in the press for years. Now that the general electorate and the world at large has seen Trump in action for two years they have a much better idea who they're dealing with. Approval for Trump within GOP party ranks may be as high as it can get, but that support alone is not enough to win a general election. Trump's political focus has been relentlessly aimed towards maximizing his base support and has actively avoided attempts to increase his appeal to moderates/centrists. This is likely to cost him dearly in key states (e.g. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania) he needed in 2016 to pull out an electoral college win. Trump, however, is a one-trick pony and there's little reason to doubt he'll continue to engage in absurd antics that will further alienate the general electorate. Heck, right now he's shut the government down so that he can violate a bedrock campaign promise he made dozens of times. That's not going to play well.

Also bear in mind a few other things:
- the Mueller probe appears to be nearing completion while a number of other federal investigations into the Trump campaign are also well underway. The methodology Mueller has pursued to date is entirely consistent with how prosecutors take on organized crime families. I suspect we're going to be hearing a good deal more in the near future about the sort of criminal activities directed by Trump that got all the people surrounding him cutting plea deals and/or donning orange jump suits. An essential difference now, though, will be that any allegations made by Mueller will almost certainly be made with significant supporting evidence made public. I suspect the volume of independently verified and supporting evidence will be such that it will not allow Rudy & Cheetoh any room to shift excuses/explanations/defenses as they have attempted every month or so for the past year. None of this is going to increase his appeal to the general electorate in 2020.
- the one good thing Trump had going for him, the economy, is showing multiple indications that investors are preparing for a major bear market in the near future. Investors don't like uncertainty and things like trade wars, government shutdowns, and record federal deficits - which can all be traced directly to Trump - all serve to increase that uncertainty. Regardless the cause, a downturn in the economy never bodes well for sitting Presidents.
- While Trump's support numbers currently appear to be high among self described republicans based on certain polling metrics, there has always been a significant undercurrent of resentment/mistrust towards Trump even within conservative circles - including the power base. Trump isn't really a conservative and never has been. Trump's 'base' appears to be largely ignorant of this fact, but higher information/informed conservatives are repeatedly given rude reminders of this whenever he engages in unscripted/unplanned/impromptu statements, actions and decisions. Like siding with Putin over this country's professional intelligence services, abruptly pulling out of Syria while a battle with ISIS still rages, or deploying active duty military to the border to address some non-existent 'crisis'. This sort of thing might play well with his base ("yeah, my boy Donny is really shaking things up!"), but informed conservatives see it for what it is and quietly cringe in silence while it's going on. When the going gets rough - and the future has every appearance of getting extremely rough for the President - I suspect you're going to see the fissures in the GOP widen as vulnerable Senate candidates go into survival mode and seek to distance themselves from Trump and his policies.
 
I've always considered myself mostly a centrist, and generally support Democrats.

That said, I am completely sick and tired of hearing about damn Ocasio-Cortez. I don't care that she was dancing on a rooftop in college. I don't care that she worked at some bar. Just stop covering the nonsense, good Lord.
 
Has the partial federal shutdown affected any fellow Cyburbians? Agencies like Commerce and HUD and Agriculture and Interior are among those closed and I imagine many of use might interact with some of those pretty frequently. I went onto the Census website a couple of days ago and was glad to see that their databases were up and running (they had been knocked offline during the 2013 shutdown). Before Christmas, I had been working with a couple of folks from the Census Bureau to put together some Complete Count workshops for the communities in our county. I was surprised when my contact called me yesterday to keep the planning going. Apparently the Census Bureau employees were furloughed on the 22nd but the folks working on the 2020 decennial census were called back as essential on December 26th. I was hoping they'd still be closed as I don't like working on the Complete Count stuff and was hoping I'd have an excuse to cancel or push back our workshop.
 
Slate summed it up nicely: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/trump-shutdown-wall-talking-points.html

I was also listening to NPR coverage of the shutdown. They were following tourists as they tried to gain access to various museums and then talked to local businesses that operate in those areas. All these federal employees are being furloughed without pay, and tourism-oriented businesses are being harmed. It's not just about proving a point, it's about actually disrupting and harming the ability of individuals to provide for themselves and their families.

I fully put this responsibility on Trump. There have been proposals to just limit the shutdown to departments that are involved with border security and to fully fund all other operations that would have Republican support. Trump refuses to agree to anything unless he gets his wall funded.
 
I too saw a recent poll that showed Trump's support among self described republicans at 88%. That's high support within the party and because of it one certainly shouldn't make the mistake of counting Trump out. At the same time polls also show his support among independents has dropped significantly during the last two years. We saw this in the 2018 elections where rural areas ended up going even redder but independents in suburban districts across the country went blue in a big way. This is not good news for either Trump or the GOP.

I'm optimistic about 2020. A lot of folks voted for Trump in 2016 before he was a known political quantity because they were turned off by Hillary - who was a very well-known political quantity whom the public had seen publicly pilloried in the press for years. Now that the general electorate and the world at large has seen Trump in action for two years they have a much better idea who they're dealing with. Approval for Trump within GOP party ranks may be as high as it can get, but that support alone is not enough to win a general election. Trump's political focus has been relentlessly aimed towards maximizing his base support and has actively avoided attempts to increase his appeal to moderates/centrists. This is likely to cost him dearly in key states (e.g. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania) he needed in 2016 to pull out an electoral college win. Trump, however, is a one-trick pony and there's little reason to doubt he'll continue to engage in absurd antics that will further alienate the general electorate. Heck, right now he's shut the government down so that he can violate a bedrock campaign promise he made dozens of times. That's not going to play well.

Also bear in mind a few other things:
- the Mueller probe appears to be nearing completion while a number of other federal investigations into the Trump campaign are also well underway. The methodology Mueller has pursued to date is entirely consistent with how prosecutors take on organized crime families. I suspect we're going to be hearing a good deal more in the near future about the sort of criminal activities directed by Trump that got all the people surrounding him cutting plea deals and/or donning orange jump suits. An essential difference now, though, will be that any allegations made by Mueller will almost certainly be made with significant supporting evidence made public. I suspect the volume of independently verified and supporting evidence will be such that it will not allow Rudy & Cheetoh any room to shift excuses/explanations/defenses as they have attempted every month or so for the past year. None of this is going to increase his appeal to the general electorate in 2020.
- the one good thing Trump had going for him, the economy, is showing multiple indications that investors are preparing for a major bear market in the near future. Investors don't like uncertainty and things like trade wars, government shutdowns, and record federal deficits - which can all be traced directly to Trump - all serve to increase that uncertainty. Regardless the cause, a downturn in the economy never bodes well for sitting Presidents.
- While Trump's support numbers currently appear to be high among self described republicans based on certain polling metrics, there has always been a significant undercurrent of resentment/mistrust towards Trump even within conservative circles - including the power base. Trump isn't really a conservative and never has been. Trump's 'base' appears to be largely ignorant of this fact, but higher information/informed conservatives are repeatedly given rude reminders of this whenever he engages in unscripted/unplanned/impromptu statements, actions and decisions. Like siding with Putin over this country's professional intelligence services, abruptly pulling out of Syria while a battle with ISIS still rages, or deploying active duty military to the border to address some non-existent 'crisis'. This sort of thing might play well with his base ("yeah, my boy Donny is really shaking things up!"), but informed conservatives see it for what it is and quietly cringe in silence while it's going on. When the going gets rough - and the future has every appearance of getting extremely rough for the President - I suspect you're going to see the fissures in the GOP widen as vulnerable Senate candidates go into survival mode and seek to distance themselves from Trump and his policies.

Very well said. It will be interesting to see how long McConnell and his ilk stick with Trumpster, as they can surely see the ship's heading and the iceberg on said course. Even though it's Trumpster's Republican party now, the rats will abandon ship before they Trumpster takes them down with the ship.
 
I've always considered myself mostly a centrist, and generally support Democrats.

That said, I am completely sick and tired of hearing about damn Ocasio-Cortez. I don't care that she was dancing on a rooftop in college. I don't care that she worked at some bar. Just stop covering the nonsense, good Lord.

Look, ____ did something embarrassing during _____ and we're going to show all the cheerleaders the pictures just to embarrass them. Is this high school or current media coverage. You decide.

Has the partial federal shutdown affected any fellow Cyburbians? Agencies like Commerce and HUD and Agriculture and Interior are among those closed and I imagine many of use might interact with some of those pretty frequently. I went onto the Census website a couple of days ago and was glad to see that their databases were up and running (they had been knocked offline during the 2013 shutdown). Before Christmas, I had been working with a couple of folks from the Census Bureau to put together some Complete Count workshops for the communities in our county. I was surprised when my contact called me yesterday to keep the planning going. Apparently the Census Bureau employees were furloughed on the 22nd but the folks working on the 2020 decennial census were called back as essential on December 26th. I was hoping they'd still be closed as I don't like working on the Complete Count stuff and was hoping I'd have an excuse to cancel or push back our workshop.

We have a guy looking to buy our house in Kansas using a VA loan. Apparently he can't get some records he needs from the VA.
 
Ironically, if he goes down (still big if) Repubs will do it and history will remember them as heroes.
 
I've always considered myself mostly a centrist, and generally support Democrats.

That said, I am completely sick and tired of hearing about damn Ocasio-Cortez. I don't care that she was dancing on a rooftop in college. I don't care that she worked at some bar. Just stop covering the nonsense, good Lord.

Here is what I find interesting... what conservatives were offended by it or signaled that it makes her unfit to be a representative. Personally, I have concerns with her lack of experience... as I do with any candidate that holds a position like this (ie. Trump) But she is not my representative and I support the idea of new voices in congress. However it sounds like her and I have different ideas on some political topics. But overall, I question if the dancing story is Faux News in terms of making it out to be something more than it is, or if there really was someone who was stupid enough to be offended by it.

It does make me happy that cell phones and social networks were not around when I was in college...




The shutdown is ridiculous and while I support border security, I stand with the Democrats on this one. I wall on the border is not going to fix the issue. I also think that it was lame that Trump mentioned that Obama built a wall around his house... he did that 2 years ago and it is no more secure than the fence around the WH or the fencing around many Trump golf course. Privacy is a good thing, but the wall is going to be ineffective.





I don't watch award shows anymore because I think that too many people are taking political direction from people who are famous because they can pretend to be someone other than who they are in front of a camera and we pay money to see it.
 
Personally, I have concerns with her lack of experience... as I do with any candidate that holds a position like this (ie. Trump) But she is not my representative and I support the idea of new voices in congress.

Yeah that's my issue with it. She seems to like to make lots of comments that probably aren't the best to make as a freshman member of Congress. As is the case with any sort of political body, there's a hierarchy here and bucking that trend is likely to hurt you more than it is to help. She needs to calm down a bit, settle in, and learn the job before she rattles sabers.
 
Unrelated to the theatrics of the border wall & tRump's Festivals of Lies tonight, you might want to think about this:

As of Thursday, DOD will be run by a former senior Boeing executive. EPA is run by a former coal lobbyist. HHS is run by a former pharmaceutical lobbyist. And Interior will be run by a former oil-industry lobbyist. Welcome to 2019.
 
From the Congressional Research Service in 2007

National Emergency Powers
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/98-505.pdf

The President of the United States has available certain powers that may be exercised in the event that the nation is threatened by crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances (other than natural disasters, war, or near-war situations). Such powers may be stated explicitly or implied by the Constitution, assumed by the Chief Executive to be permissible constitutionally, or inferred from or specified by statute. Through legislation, Congress has made a great many delegations of authority in this regard over the past 200 years.
 
You know you want this -

81G0N4N7hGL._SL1500_.jpg

https://www.amazon.com/Trump-Presid...ocphy=9016677&hvtargid=pla-568357160862&psc=1
 
So, I didn't watch Trump's speech last night, but from all accounts the content was pretty much what everyone expected - recycled half-truths and outright lies we've heard dozens of times before from his campaign rallies. I did, however, this morning come across an interesting take on the speech I can honestly say I didn't expect....namely, there's compelling evidence that the speech was not delivered live, but was recorded previously and green screened Trump to appear as if he was in the oval office. Seriously! Check out the link.

 
Unrelated to the theatrics of the border wall & tRump's Festivals of Lies tonight, you might want to think about this:

As of Thursday, DOD will be run by a former senior Boeing executive. EPA is run by a former coal lobbyist. HHS is run by a former pharmaceutical lobbyist. And Interior will be run by a former oil-industry lobbyist. Welcome to 2019.

He said he would drain the swamp...he didn't say what he would refill it with...
 
I watched both the President's speech and the speeches by Pelosi and Schumer. My take away is that Trump wants to frame this as a humanitarian crisis that the only solution for is a wall. The D's just focused on the government shut down and how it shouldn't be tied to Trump's request for a wall.

I don't think either speech did anything to persuade the other group to change their minds. I will say though that Trump really looks terrible doing things like this. He isn't good at speaking to people. He does much better at rally's and yelling when he can get applause. His breathing and demeanor are just not suited for this environment.

With that said the D's really missed the mark by putting up their two leaders. They had an opportunity to look new and fresh, and they looked really old and tired. Nancy Pelosi may well be the Hilary Clinton of the next year, in that they went with the easy choice instead of the one that would get them a win. She and Chuck Schumer were much better at speaking, but they just came off as a parent telling us their children, how silly this whole thing is. It didn't sell me anything, it just made me wish they weren't the people spreading the message.

Overall I think it did little to nothing. I am not pleased that our President thinks this is the kind of thing that he should do on our TV in primetime. He has really made everything into politics, which is the main problem we have in our country now, in my view. Well that and our inability to accept differing points of view and hear things we disagree with (*trigger warning*). :r:
 
Strategically for the 'publicans, that was a waste of the power of the Oval Office. Scripted president has no chutzpah.
Nancy and Chuck reminded me of a slightly punk version of Grant Wood's "American Gothic". Certainly a "ho hum" response.

Is it 2021 yet?
 
I agree with HInk. In the back of my mind I thought the dems would have taken the opportunity to showcase some soon to be pres candidates. I was hoping no Cortez, to junior, but instead the trot out the same dog and pony show that lost them the election last time. People are tired of old. They wanted something new so they elected tRump. For both parties, maybe give us someone worth voting for?
 
With that said the D's really missed the mark by putting up their two leaders. They had an opportunity to look new and fresh, and they looked really old and tired. Nancy Pelosi may well be the Hilary Clinton of the next year, in that they went with the easy choice instead of the one that would get them a win. She and Chuck Schumer were much better at speaking, but they just came off as a parent telling us their children, how silly this whole thing is. It didn't sell me anything, it just made me wish they weren't the people spreading the message.

This is all I have to say about last night:

2qq5pc.jpg
 
Didn't watch. Cheeto's speech wasn't going to be a mystery, neither were Chuck & Nancy's response.
 
I am seeing a lot of "We can solve this!" posts from Bernie Sanders supporters in regards to solving climate change - "We must continue to take on the fossil fuel billionaires, accelerate our transition to clean energy, and finally put people before the profits of polluters." I can only guess there are a lot of people who don't want power plants (wind farms) in their back yard. I also watched AOC on 60 minutes on Sunday talking about this Green New Deal idea. I am wondering where these ideas will go, politically speaking - it's not like the U.S. has a national energy policy anymore that is incentivizing a certain amount of energy be produced from renewables. Is the idea to revive the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, or is it to get people to consider something else? Just thinking out loud here as the pro-carbon folks are still out there, as well as moderate dems ready to disenfranchise the liberal wing of their party.
 
I am seeing a lot of "We can solve this!" posts from Bernie Sanders supporters in regards to solving climate change - "We must continue to take on the fossil fuel billionaires, accelerate our transition to clean energy, and finally put people before the profits of polluters." I can only guess there are a lot of people who don't want power plants (wind farms) in their back yard. I also watched AOC on 60 minutes on Sunday talking about this Green New Deal idea. I am wondering where these ideas will go, politically speaking - it's not like the U.S. has a national energy policy anymore that is incentivizing a certain amount of energy be produced from renewables. Is the idea to revive the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, or is it to get people to consider something else? Just thinking out loud here as the pro-carbon folks are still out there, as well as moderate dems ready to disenfranchise the liberal wing of their party.
I really think the idea of a Green New Deal is great, but the reality is that they are going to get buried trying to sell it. The D's have determined that they need to go WAY left to try and differentiate themselves from the R's. This was the cause of the R's losing when they went all Tea Party. The pendulum really needs to stay more in the middle if a party wants to win.

There shouldn't be any argument for improved infrastructure, stronger power grid, renewables, etc. That isn't a party issue, or at least it shouldn't be. How we pay for it, what it replaces, and the economic impact of those decisions should be the talking points. If we were talking about how we were going to pay for the new power grid, instead of deciding if coal jobs are more valuable than wind jobs, we would be in a much better place. Both parties should be trying to focus the country towards bigger ideas, and then fight over how they see they should be implemented. I don't know how any person can not support our country moving towards renewable energy, if it means cheaper, more efficient energy for us?

Politicians make up issues to get people fired up. Once the D's or R's figure out how to "win" an issue they just keep riding that horse. **See wall discussion **
 
I don't see any major effort to green ourselves until uniform catastrophe stares us in the face. Then it might be too late.

I would like to see some enterprising community sized group of 'greens' politically take over some level of local government - like a small city or township or county.

Once they have political control they change the specific regulations/prohibitions of that government to allow the kind of super low or effectively zero carbon footprint they're looking for.
 
I don't think that the CNN report from the border had the effect that they wanted it to have... I still don't support the wall, but I think that CNN should have done a better job of finding a place that has a wall and a ton of activity or a place without the wall and zero activity if they were trying to paint that picture.
 
So Rudy sez The President should be able to assert Executive privilege to 'correct' the Mueller Report before it gets released to Congress and the American public.

You know, that seems entirely reasonable to me. After all, Mueller is only human. And being human means he could make mistakes and include erroneous information and come to incorrect conclusions. So of course Trump should be able to make a few appropriated changes as needed. But as reasonable as this all is, I'll just dare to bet you a handful of vocal libtards and the lamestream media are going to cry foul over that. Whatever happened to common sense.
 
A coworker made a comment that the proposed cost of the wall is less than 0.1% percent of the total budget. Now, I am not in favor of the wall and I think that it is a stupid idea, but are both sides really doing this for 0.1% of the budget?
 
A coworker made a comment that the proposed cost of the wall is less than 0.1% percent of the total budget. Now, I am not in favor of the wall and I think that it is a stupid idea, but are both sides really doing this for 0.1% of the budget?

Even if it is 0.1% of the budget, there is a lot more at stake. It's a really clear example of people arguing over positions instead of over the interests. They're arguing over funding for the wall. But the disagreement isn't really over funding for the wall - it's a wide variety of other issues that are really complicated and difficult to parse out. So they end up arguing over the more simple disagreement of funding for the wall...
 
Even if it is 0.1% of the budget, there is a lot more at stake. It's a really clear example of people arguing over positions instead of over the interests. They're arguing over funding for the wall. But the disagreement isn't really over funding for the wall - it's a wide variety of other issues that are really complicated and difficult to parse out. So they end up arguing over the more simple disagreement of funding for the wall...
Quite. Just like all the noise and furor over federal funds going to Planned Parenthood. In that case we're talking about $ millions with an 'm' not billions. Throw another zero or two in front of that % sign. Congressional arguments swirl around questions of funding, but it's really not about the money.

The dems must NOT cave on this. Not even if the appropriation is for $1 towards the wall. If Trump discovers he can get his way like this, he'll shut down the government every time he wants something.
 
When will key Republican senators decide that tRump is more trouble than he’s worth?
I believe this is the breaking point.

Likely this week or next week, but this doesn't go beyond 35 days, I hope.
 
Message for all
It Snowed Last Night..
8:00 am: I made a snowman.
8:10 - A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn't make a snow woman.
8:15 - So, I made a snow woman.
8:17 - My feminist neighbor complained about the snow woman's voluptuous chest saying it objectified snow women everywhere.
8:20 - The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snow men instead.
8:22 - The transgender man..women...person asked why I didn't just make one snow person with detachable parts.
8:25 - The vegans at the end of the street complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.
8:28 - I was being called a racist because the snow couple is white.
8:31 - The middle eastern gent across the road demanded the snow woman be covered up .
8:40 - The Police arrived saying someone had been offended.
8:42 - The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needed to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role.
8:43 - The code enforcement officer arrived and threatened me with eviction.
8:45 - TV news crew from FOX showed up. I was asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I replied "Snowballs" and am now called a sexist.
9:00 - I was on the News as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobe sensibility offender, bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.
9:10 - I was asked if I have any accomplices. My children were taken by social services.
9:29 - Far left protesters offended by everything marched down the street demanding for me to be arrested.
Moral:
There is no moral to this story. It is what we have become all because of snowflakes.
 
Of all the things to come out of the Trump presidency, pictures of mountains of fast food for the Clemson meal has to be the funniest. It's so absurd. Gravy boats from the Lincoln administration held freaking McDonald's sauce. "It has to be their favorite food" he says. No, it's YOUR favorite food. These are freaking professional athletes, most of them probably haven't had McDonald's in years.
 
You know when those guys show up to NFL training camp there's going to be a pile of burgers.
 
These are freaking professional athletes, most of them probably haven't had McDonald's in years.
This is something that Tom Brady and Lebron James changed. You don't see smoking, or eating unhealthy anymore. They only eat good food and build their bodies up.

I think Trump's ignorance to almost all things outside his very small worldview is humorous.
 
..and you know all those burgers and pizzas and fries were hot and fresh, right? tRump paid for them himself too!



All that work for a 15-0 season & national championship and their reward was a lukewarm greasy meat-product on a stale bun. Sad!
 
..and you know all those burgers and pizzas and fries were hot and fresh, right? tRump paid for them himself too!



All that work for a 15-0 season & national championship and their reward was a lukewarm greasy meat-product on a stale bun. Sad!

The fries were repackaged in a cup with the Presidential seal on it and held under heat lamps. I didn't see any McRibs, meaning even the President of the United States doesn't have the pull to get those back out of season!!
 
I get a perverse satisfaction that when Bitch McConnell dreamt of being the Senate Majority Leader this wasn't at all the scenario he imagined, not by a long shot indeed.
 
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